One important point that I feel I should lay out, right up front, is that I've recently decided to forego writing the Red Shift RPG. After some introspection, I decided that the world probably doesn't need one more tabletop RPG that badly -- especially with the sheer number of them that are being released in recent years. Even if it had been functional (I hope that I could have ultimately guaranteed at least that much from my design work), it wouldn't have been original enough in a new or challenging way. As a good friend said to me, right now, there are a lot of rulesets out there that aren't strongly supported with adventures or settings. So why would I create one more? That said, I intend to continue this series of posts because I think sharing the design work that I did complete would be useful as part of the overall conversation on RPGs. Plus, it might prove useful to someone who is considering creating an RPG, at least to perhaps provoke some critical inspection. With that out of the way, let's proceed with the first topic...
Hopefully, at the core of any successful RPG is a decently running engine, some kind of resolution mechanic that introduces randomness into and elicits engagement with the game. There are already a number of highly popular and extremely effective systems out there -- as well as a number of less popular ones.
As I started to think about Red Shift, I thought about aspects of other systems that I didn't like, as much as those that I did like. I wanted to ensure that I wouldn't replicate some of those elements that I saw as not working very well. This, paired with my own quirky, individualistic sensibilities led me to a few key principles of design for this game.
Make all the dice important. If my game was going to utilize a polyhedral set, why not utilize the entire set? I play lots of games that ostensibly require the entire 7-dice set, but largely focus on one or two of those. Now, understandably, a well-designed game will have one central die (or a pair of that die, or pool of that die, etc.) so as not to overcomplicate their system, and that makes sense -- but it always kind of bothers me that there are these ancillary dice that never really get used much during play. So, while I definitely wanted to focus on a die to handle the central mechanics, I also wanted the other dice to be useful during the game. In the end, I decided to use the other dice to track subordinate functions in the game. I'll talk more about that in subsequent posts as I cover each of these functions.
Make d12 the central die. I've always felt that the d12 had this untapped potential. It seems to rarely get used, and I suspect that there are some players out there who question the point of keeping it in a polyhedral set. Sure, there are some systems out there that focus on the d12 -- I'm thinking specifically of Rogue Games' Colonial Gothic, which is built on the 12° System and uses only 2d12 at the table -- but they are relatively few and far between. So I wanted to see if I could create a simple system that could do the d12 justice. As I started making my initial notes, I brainstormed a bit to come up with possibilities for the central system engine.
My first idea was to use two d12s, rolled simultaneously but not added together. Instead, they would be compared with each other; and success would be determined based on how marginal the interval was between the two. A difference of one or two digits between the results was a success. If the dice came up naturally with the same number, it was a critical success. Levels for related skills or attributes would act as modifiers, but without the need to track the as positive or negative integers -- they simply shifted one of the two rolled numbers in a beneficial direction, raising a lower number or lowering a higher number. I ran a few hundred simulated dice rolls at Anydice.com. The table below represents the findings -- the "Results Span" is the difference between the two rolled numbers; "Total Counts" is the number of times that difference occurred in the rolls; and "%" is simply the percentage of times that result occurred.
| Results Span | Total Counts | % |
| 0 | 25 | 13% |
| 1 | 32 | 16% |
| 2 | 28 | 14% |
| 3 | 30 | 15% |
| 4 | 21 | 11% |
| 5 | 18 | 9% |
| 6 | 16 | 8% |
| 7 | 7 | 4% |
| 8 | 10 | 5% |
| 9 | 6 | 3% |
| 10 | 3 | 2% |
| 11 | 3 | 2% |
Ultimately, looking at the way those numbers worked out, I decided against using that system. I couldn't find a delineation in the differences that yielded a balance of successes and failures, and also produced a threshold that was clear and easy to remember for players. All in all, it just didn't feel elegant enough to work.
I started shifting my attention towards something a little simpler. Next, I decided to work with a system of "d12 + modifier," comparing the result against a target number, which I decided to call a Target Threshold (TT). For most tasks, the TT would be 8 -- with the option to raise it to 9 or 10 for particularly difficult tasks, or 6 or 7 for simpler tasks. The modifiers, in this case, would be either the character's attribute modifier or skill level, depending on the task. Attempting to use an untrained skill would incur a modifier of -3.
| Target Threshold 8 | 1d12-3 | 1d12-2 | 1d12 | 1d12+1 | 1d12+2 | 1d12+3 |
| % Chance | 17% | 29% | 42% | 50% | 55% | 66% |
Thus, an untrained character would have a 17% chance of success, while a highly trained character would have a 66% chance of success. At the time, this seemed like a good spread of probability. Looking back on it now, while I like the untrained end of that spectrum, I'd prefer to have a higher chance of success for highly trained skills -- so maybe a TT of 7.
While this system worked -- enough that I chose it for the core mechanic -- there was still a problem. The problem with this was that it was...mundane. My system was basically the commonplace d20 system rescaled for a different die. It succeeded in being a bit simpler (modifiers could be smaller than those required in a d20 system, but could still make a significant impact), but not as unique as my earlier concept. Still, I was willing to setting for simple, so I pressed forward.
Include a scalable critical success mechanic. Finally, I thought a bit about critical success and failure within the system. I'm generally a fan of that mechanic, so it seemed clear that I would include it in some way. Making a naturally rolled 12 into a critical success seemed uninteresting, especially in light of the existing similarity between this system and the d20 scale. Also, it had always bothered me a bit that, in d20-based RPGs, the probability of a critical success is essentially the same for a novice adventurer and an experienced veteran (presuming that a natural 20 is required for a critical success); exceptional success doesn't scale with experience. I started looking to mechanics that would try to address that discrepancy.
I ultimately came up with an idea that, at first, seemed original to me. I hadn't seen it being used in any other RPG -- at least not among those that I knew and not that a fair amount of internet searching revealed. I asked myself, what if there was a separate die that determined critical success and failure? Players could roll a d12 for the main check and, simultaneously, a d6 to check for level of success. The results would break down as follows:
- d12 Success + 6 on Critical Die = Critical Success
- d12 Failure + 1 on Critical Die = Critical Failure
A few days after deciding on this system, I realized that it wasn't as original as I'd thought. Unfortunately, these days, there is seldom anything new under the RPG sun. As I discovered, something very similar to the critical die had already been developed and implemented just a few months earlier by Eric Bloat of Bloat Games for his new RPG, The Blackest of Deaths. In this game, you also roll a to-hit die and a d6 simultaneously, the d6 determining the degree of success or complication.
So that's an overview of the basic system I'd developed for Red Shift. Next time, I'll take a look at primary and secondary character attributes and how they would have been handled.
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